Canton, NY (CC BY-NC 2.0 Decaseconds)
I was interviewed by North Country Public Radio in Canton’s Reassessment Doubled Many Home Values. How Does That Affect Taxes? The story reads,
Last month, Canton residents started receiving letters in the mail notifying them of their new property value assessments. Some people said their home values more than doubled, causing concern about unaffordable tax increases.
Canton’s last property tax assessment was almost two decades ago, in 2008. Since then, the values of people’s properties have changed. They’ve mostly gone up.
The town says properties were assessed at only 60% of their market value, and that the new revaluation brings these property values back up to 100% of their assessed value.
Reassessments have also happened recently in Potsdam, Ogdensburg, and other towns in the North Country. According to the Department of Taxation and Finance, these revaluations are happening to equalize property values so that people are taxed fairly.
But these changes have shocked some Canton residents. At a town board meeting in March, Phillip Burnett said his assessment seemed way too high.
“It’s so far out of whack…we’re talking about a double wide that tripled in 13 years,” said Burnett. “The discrepancy is so large that I don’t have confidence in anybody inside of these four walls, because this is what you voted for. I mean, my hair’s blown back that you guys got it so wrong.”
Town Supervisor Jim Smith says that just because a property value increases, that doesn’t mean your taxes will.
“That does not mean your taxes are going to double. No way, does it mean your taxes are going to double,” said Smith. “They would only double if county, town, and school left their tax rates at the very same rates as what they are, but all those tax rates are going to come down.”
Smith says he’s expecting there to be a reduction in tax rates by next year. That’s because, due to this reassessment, Canton’s tax base is expected to grow from $417 million to $730 million.
David Reiss, a Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell University, says property assessments need to keep up with how neighborhoods change.
“And so if you don’t reassess, you don’t really capture the introduction of the park. You don’t capture the introduction of the highway exit,” says Reiss. “And so you have relative unfairness where maybe both houses were valued at $200,000 15 years ago, but one is now worth $250,000, and then the other’s worth $400,000. And the reassessment is supposed to capture how that has diverged over time.”
Reiss says there are many variables, but it’s important for property owners to understand not just the assessed value of their property, but also their neighbours and the town as a whole.
“You need to understand the tax rate. You need to understand the budget. And then you have a better sense of how this is playing out across the board and also how it’s playing out for each individual property owner.”
Canton residents have the opportunity to contest their new property values at Grievance Days, which start on May 26. Town Supervisor Jim Smith encourages people who have concerns with their assessment to get in touch with the assessor’s office.
Smith says that in the future, he’s hoping to make these assessments happen more often, so that people aren’t surprised by what their property’s assessed value is.
